1 64 Voyage of the Novara. 



how in a single year there occurred above 2000 cases in which 

 the law was violated. While we were in the justice-room, a 

 paper was handed in to the presiding magistrate, in which an 

 English sailor, at that moment in hospital, urgently requested 

 that he might leave the same, inasmuch as he felt Jio longer 

 sure of his life, owing to the numbers daily brought thither 

 to die of cholera. In fact the hospital, and the localities 

 adjacent, seemed to be the spots most seriously visited by the 

 pestilence, so that the prayer of the petitioner to be removed 

 from that neighbom-hood was not altogether unfounded. 



One highly interesting establishment, deserving of universal 

 imitation, is the penal colony for criminals sentenced to trans- 

 portation for life from all parts of India, and known as " The 

 Convict Settlement." In order to comprehend the object 

 and tendency of this institution, it seems necessary to premise 

 certain remarks upon the political relation of Singapore to 

 India at large. Singapore in conjunction with the colony of 

 Malacca, w^hicli gives its name to the entire ^^eninsula, and 

 the island of Penang, including the district of Wellesley, form 

 that range of British settlements in the Straits of Malacca 

 which is usually known to the English as '' The Straits Settle- 

 ments." Up to quite a recent date, these colonies, founded 

 almost exclusively in the interests of British commerce, were 

 under the authority of the Indian government, and were in 

 fact controlled from Calcutta. To the Directors of the East 

 India Company, however, these settlements, of whose future 

 destiny the motlier country has hitlierto taken but little heed. 



